Elkins J (2003). What happened to art criticism? Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press
[In a short work surveying the last 50 years of art criticism, Elkins addresses what has become known as the 'crisis of criticism']

Blunt A (1962) Artistic theory in Italy, 1450-1600. Oxford: Oxford Univ Press.
[Excellent on Renaissance and architecture from the former Advisor for the Queen's Pictures and Drawings, later revealed to have been a Soviet agent. A very fine art historian too]

23 November 2009Barthes R, (2009) Death of the author. Translated Richard Howard. http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen5and6/threeEssays.html#barthes (accessed November 23 2009)
[Useful online version of an enormously influential essay, written by Roland Barthes in 1967. 'The birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author']